146 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



The black spots indicate the influence of camel blood. We have a horse that 

 shows these spots. He is a chestnut with black spots, and we have no doubt 

 they run back six generations to that horse. White hairs mixed in the coat 

 indicate the blood of Sir Hercules. Bannyweala never sired more than one 

 or two colts but that these white hairs were plainly visible in them as well as 

 in his own coat. 



And this reminds me of an anecdote told by an Irishman who said that Sir 

 Hercules had many colts in Ireland, and that if an Irishman had a colt with 

 white hairs in his coat, he was always ready to ^wear that the colt was bv 

 Ould Sir Hercules or some of his sons. The Morgan horse possesses this 

 power in a marked degree. Any one who has ever seen a Morgan horse can 

 tell one at a glance. 



What is wanted of a stallion is the power to transmit his characteristics to 

 his offspring the blood which predominates over that of any other strain with, 

 which it is mingled, a potent, masterful blood, filling the veins of those born 

 of it. Such a stallion deprives breeding in a great measure of its uncer- 

 tainty. The best stallion is he who being good himself surely and closely 

 begets stock like himself, or that of some great ancestor. When you come 

 across such an one, and he being the model strain of blood you desire, ask to 

 see liis foals before sending your mares to him. Blood and performance alone 

 do not always indicate a good stallion for breeding purposes. 



The influences that compass the breeder, who aims at the best, are numerous 

 and intricate, and in embryology there is a point beyond that has not been 

 pierced by mortal man, a chasm which the most scientific has never crossed, 

 and there are secrets in reproduction that man has never been able to fathom. 

 Among the causes of variation are soil, climate, breeding back, disease, acci- 

 dent, imagination of the dam, and the influence of former pregnancy. One 

 of the most dominant laws is that of hereditary transmission. Prepotency is 

 less frequently the prerogative of the individual than of the breed, long and 

 carefully to a particular type. Hence the value of pure races in imparting to 

 other breeds their own qualities to a proportionately greater extent than the 

 share they had in begetting them. A writer has said ''that this grand 

 law of inheritance is a force as uniform in its action, and as invariable as the 

 law of gravity. Like gravity its action is modified and interfered with by 

 opposing forces, which oftentimes disguise its phenomena." 



By adhering to the principles advocated they would be of great and ines- 

 timable value, and barring accidents and the unfathomable freaks of nature, 

 our stock of all kinds would be improved beyond estimate, in beauty, useful- 

 ness, and value. We might here give many illustrations and examples in 

 proof of our position, had we time and were it necessary. 



Gentlemen, we will give one, and let that suffice. Suppose we take English 

 Eclipse, who never lost a heat or paid a forfeit, and his superior powers were 

 so generally known and admitted that no person would enter a horse against 

 him, and for this reason he was obliged to retire fiom the turf; and suppose 

 we take Maud S., who is the queen of the American trotting turf, and the 

 fastest the world has ever known (and she is almost clean cut thoroughbred). 

 Now, why were these two such great performers? Simply because they were 

 more nearly perfect in their entire organization and make-up. The next ques- 

 tion is, how did they come so? Was it by accident? Did you ever know, is there 

 one example where a low or common bred horse ever made such performances? 

 Never. The question answers itself — it is by thoughtful and high breeding, 

 and it is as natural as that water runs down hill that as long as we breed up 



